Situation:

Building on the success of the reimagined allocation mechanism for the general bursary programs in 2019, UBC Leadership expanded the scope of work to include post-baccalaureate bursary programs. The previous mechanism, which used a one-size-fits-all approach, resulted in a mismatch between allocated funds and students' financial circumstances. It failed to account for factors such as student family size, family income, and the unique characteristics of students in this group. UBC Leadership assigned Strategy & Decision Support the task of reevaluating the bursary allocation strategy for post-baccalaureate programs and developing a new approach that aimed to strategically and fairly distribute the annual $7 million bursary funding to over 1,000 students, while ensuring the long-term financial sustainability of the bursary pool.

Our Actions:

• Developed guiding principles to achieve alignment of interests and objectives and to support decision-making throughout the process
• Orchestrated a series of working group sessions including key members from Enrolment Services as well as conducted consultations with Deans and UBC Leadership
• Provided innovative thought leadership in developing the funding allocation strategy and designed the funding allocation mechanism that factored in student family size, income, and their ability to contribute to their education while accounting for the available funding envelope
• Developed financial models to conduct the scenario and impact analysis to assess the financial impact to Faculties and students including detailed analysis based on specific student profiles
• Evaluated proposed options against a framework aligned with the established guiding principles
• Validated the final recommendation with the working group, Deans, and the UBC Executive
• Worked with Enrolment Services to operationalize the mechanism, including developing a communication plan and operational guidelines

Results:

• The proposed approach to allocating the bursary funding for post-baccalaureate programs enables strategic and equitable distribution of funds to students with the greatest needs, while also ensuring predictable financial sustainability
• Based on the guiding principles and evaluation framework, it was decided to shift the Bachelor of Education program to the General Bursary Pool, resulting in both an increase in average bursaries and a significantly larger number of bursary recipients for students in this program
• The proposal was approved by the UBC Executive and operationalized in 2022